RAHWAY -- Tawana Cook lost her job as a payroll coordinator last year, on the day before Thanksgiving. The unexpected layoff drained the single mother’s house of its sole income, making her struggle to meet the more than $1,600 monthly mortgage payment on her East Emerson Avenue home in Rahway.

As the months wore on and job prospects dimmed, Cook kept stretching her unemployment checks, which totalled to only a few hundred dollars more than her monthly obligations.

Alexandra Pais/New Jersey Local News ServiceTawana Cook, who was helped by the Urban League when she struggled with her mortgage payments, at her home in Rahway.
Her financial troubles were enough to make the 45-year-old shed the preconceptions she had about asking for help and make the drive to the Urban League of Union County’s office in Elizabeth.

With a new campaign, called the Restore Our Homes initiative, the Urban League wants to prevent more people from teetering on the precipice of losing their home.

Foreclosures have spiked 56 percent in Union County from November of last year to this year. Statewide, foreclosures are up more than 65 percent during the same time period, according to RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif.-based firm that tracks foreclosure filings.

The county’s Urban League, a nonprofit organization, has been helping homeowners renegotiate mortgages since the mid-1970s.

With the help of a housing counselor, Cook cut her monthly payments in half. And the league wants to help others do the same. The campaign is a promotional effort that aims at informing homeowners there is help available for free.

Though tasked to help the African-American community, as well as other minority groups, Ella Teal, president of the county’s Urban League, said the foreclosure crisis has brought in people from all backgrounds -- and all parts of the county.

Years ago, the nonprofit group dealt with less than 200 people seeking help with their mortgage. Last year, the group handled about 400 applications, according to Teal. This year, that number has nearly doubled.

“Until the job market starts to turn around, we are going to continue having these problems,” said Teal.

Cook was paying about $1,650 a month when she first stepped into the Urban League’s office this fall.

Her teenage son, Marques Hoskins, had taken a semester off from Union County College and found a second job in an effort to help keep the home Cook bought for $79,000 a decade ago.

Now, she is paying about $820. And Hoskins is preparing to return to school this summer.
Cook admits that when she first thought about approaching the county’s Urban League’s she had her reservations. Now, she’s glad she found help.

“Some people can’t even enjoy the holidays that are coming, because they are less concerned about gifts and more concerned about retaining the roof over their head,” said Cook. “I myself struggled all summer when I didn’t have to. But I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

Homeowners needing immediate assistance are encouraged visit the Urban League of Union County at 288 North Broad St. in Elizabeth or call (908) 351-7200.